My Favorite Food in the Universe…

These small peaches on tree number two in my orchard are all ripening at once, about six weeks early.

…with the caveat that there is much of the Universe left to explore.

Abby and I went to her hometown, Ryan, Oklahoma, yesterday. We normally bring Abby’s father’s widow Ethel lunch, and on this occasion she told us that she loves Chinese food, but that none of her friends or relatives will eat it with her. It didn’t take us long to decide to pick up lunch from our favorite hole-in-the-wall Chinese place, New China King in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Abby and Ethel shared moo goo gai pan, shrimp and vegetables, and chow mein. I got my usual, a dish I have decided over the years is my favorite prepared dish of all, fried tofu with broccoli. New China King’s is the best, but there are very good versions of this slice of culinary paradise at chains like P. F. Chang’s, though you often have to ask for it since it is not always on the menu.

When it comes to fresh food, I will say that peaches, particularly the ones that grow around here, are at the top of my list. In fact, one of my trees is bearing ripe fruit right now, six weeks or so early, and I spent about ten minutes Saturday eating peaches right off the tree.

Finally, I know that about a third of the blogs on the planet have lame, derivative food posts in them all the time, usually with iPhone images looking directly down at their lunch. If this entry is reminiscent of those, please close this window, remove your bookmark to this site, and never speak of it or me again.

Fried tofu with broccoli is not only amazingly delicious, it is decently nutritious, and that matters to me very much.

3 Comments

Prepared food? My Mom’s won tons. I almost always dislike won tons that are served in restaurants. I’m not sure where my mother got the recipe, but it’s been my favorite food since I was a kid.

Fresh food? Hard to decide, but several fruits have always been at the top of my list:

* Strawberries (best if picked straight out of Meemaw’s garden and eaten unwashed)
* Blackberries (best if picked straight from the wild bushes in Granny’s pasture and eaten unwashed)
* Watermelon, red (best if served cold with a dash of salt and eaten on a wooden picnic table on a hot Oklahoma summer afternoon, possibly after an hour’s worth of Frisbee-throwing with cousins)
* Plums
* Bananas
* Cantaloupe

Fresh foods-cucumbers in vinegar from the icebox on a summer day. Half a homegrown giant tomato, sliced with a dash of salt eaten in hand.

Actually broccoli is my favorite vegetable, while tomatoes may be the best food item ever. It’s a sauce, it’s a vegetable, it’s actually a fruit… it is the super food overlord that all other super foods should bow down to… except for mustard of course.